Columbia University President Minouche Shafik resigned Wednesday after months of scrutiny and outrage over her handling of campus demonstrations protesting the Israel-Hamas war, the university announced.
Dr. Shafik’s abrupt exit comes just three weeks before the start of Columbia’s fall semester. Her resignation follows widespread anger over her handling of pro-Palestinian protests that resulted in canceled commencements and the resignation of three associate deans. The former president assumed her post last July.
The Board of Trustees announced that Katrina Armstrong, the CEO of Columbia University Irving Medical Center, has agreed to serve as interim president.
“I believe that—working together—we have made progress in a number of important areas. However, it has also been a period of turmoil where it has been difficult to overcome divergent views across our community,” Shafik wrote in a letter to the Columbia community.
“This period has taken a considerable toll on my family, as it has for others in our community. Over the summer, I have been able to reflect and have decided that my moving on at this point would best enable Columbia to traverse the challenges ahead.”
Armstrong also wrote a letter to the campus community following her interim appointment.
“Challenging times present both the opportunity and the responsibility for serious leadership to emerge from every group and individual within a community. This is such a time at Columbia,” she wrote.
Shafik is the third Ivy League president to resign after appearing in highly charged hearings in April over a surge in antisemitism on campuses nationwide in the wake of Israel’s war in Gaza.
In May, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Columbia passed a resolution of no-confidence in the former president, with 65% of the school’s faculty voting in favor. They accused her of engaging in an “unprecedented assault on students’ rights” when she decided to seek the arrests of 100 protesters despite contrary advice from the University Senate. The vote indicated that she violated students’ rights of academic freedom and shared governance.
In preparation for further protests in the fall, the university announced a new color-coded system to alert the campus community of the protest risk level, similar to the Homeland Security advisory system. The risk level was recently changed from Green to Orange, permitting only people with Columbia identification onto campus.
Shafik did not have a long history in academia before assuming her position as president last year. She was president of the London School of Economics and Political Science for six years before taking the Columbia job. But before then, she served in senior roles in international banking, including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. She also worked for the British government, serving as a deputy governor of the Bank of England and a cross-bench peer in the House of Lords.
Armstrong served as the chief executive of Columbia’s medical center and dean of its medical school since 2022.
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